Photographs by Frank

22 December 2012

The Late December Landscape

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 11:59 PM

Here it is, late December, we have a bit of snow on the ground and the lake is starting to ice over in the shallow and sheltered spots. The landscape is slowly recovering from the blah grays of early winter.

I bought myself a Winter Solstice present, a Nikon 1 V1 with the zoom lens. I wanted a small “always with me” camera. I have only put a few dozen “clicks” on it since it came on Wednesday as I had much grading to finish. So far it seems to be working well… I just need to remember to take it with me each time I head out of the house!

All of the photographs shown here were taken with the new camera.

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24 November 2012

November Landscapes

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,National Wildlife Refuges — Tags: , — Frank @ 1:00 PM

November is not the best month of the year for landscapes in New England.

Although we often have nice clear, crisp days… the cloudless skies and grey hillsides can conspire to make for somewhat bland photographs. None-the-less, I keep trying!

On Thursday (Thanksgiving) afternoon, Joan and I walked up the road to Brimstone Corner while the turkey was in the oven. Nick pulled up just as we arrived back at the house and we extended our stroll by heading down to the lake. I had not taken the camera along on the first part of the walk, but the sun was low enough to tempt me as we headed down to the lake.

Yesterday afternoon, the three of us  took a hike up North Pac Monadnock; the trail head in the Wapack NWR is about a 20 minute drive from the house. We finished the hike in the light of the mostly full moon.

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5 October 2012

It was a dark and stormy night…

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Actually, it was a rainy afternoon… but that doesn’t sound as dramatic!

The foliage is close to peak around here. I headed out about four o’clock in a light rain to photograph.

Over the next couple of hours the weather cycled from a drizzle to moderate rain. As the hour got later and the light began to fade the fog moved in.

I never made it past the bridge at the north end of Gregg Lake a mile from the house. The photographic possibilities seemed endless.

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29 September 2012

Foliage!

Filed under: Autumn,Landscapes,Monadnock Region — Tags: , — Frank @ 8:00 AM

Foliage season is in full swing in the Mondanock region. The wetland margins (i.e. swamp maples) are pretty much at peak and there is significant color on the hillsides.

The weather Thursday afternoon was “severe clear”… not the best for landscapes. However, with polarizer firmly in place, I headed out around four anyway.

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Three-frame panorama:

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30 June 2012

Odes and Wildflowers at Rye Pond

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Late yesterday (Friday) afternoon Joan and I put the kayaks in at Rye Pond in Stoddard. This small, shallow pond is part of a Harris Center parcel. It has a well-traveled (for this part of the world anyway) road along one edge but is still quite pleasant.

The weather was sunny and rather warm. There was a very gusty breeze blowing. The breeze probably limited the numbers of odes that were out and about and it certainly made for difficult photography. It is rather difficult to frame and focus while being blown about in ones boat! That said, we still had a pretty successful outing.

One area of the pond has extensive floating bogs and, as is typical,  there were many interesting plants to be found in this ecological niche.

We stayed out until there was no more direct sunlight on the water and it was 8:30 PM by the time we got the boats back on the truck.

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25 June 2012

Along the Contoocook

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Other Insects — Tags: , — Frank @ 1:00 PM

Yesterday afternoon was sunny with the temperature in the mid-70’s… perfect weather for odes.  Looking to explore a ecological niche different from the lake or beaver swamp that I usually haunt,  I headed for the Contoocook River to “hunt”.

My first stop was the Powder Mill Pond WMA in Greenfield; this site is above the dam but at the far end of the “pond”,  just where the water narrows back down  The water level was very low.

The variety of  species in a very small area was quite remarkable.

Along the river banks (the first three photos were taken here), there were numerous chalk-fronted corporals cruising the area. There were also many skimming bluets right at the waters edge.

I saw a single twelve-spotted skimmer. I stalked it for quite some time but I did not get a photograph because I never saw  it come lower than about eight feet off the ground. It was perched on a pine bough maybe twenty five feet up the last time I saw it.

A short (maybe 500 feet) walk from the river is a meadow off the parking lot where the next three photos were taken. While I was concentrating on the lancet clubtail, I noticed some movement off to the side. I turned to see a male widow skimmer (which I had never seen before) perched on a stalk of grass. I was able to grab a single frame before it flew off. Alas, I was too close (within the close focus distance of my lens + extension tube) and  the photo was not sharp. I guess that I’ll need to head back there again soon and continue the hunt!

The last four photos were taken at my second stop, a slow moving part of the river below the dam at the paper mill in Bennington. The stream bluets were fairly common and there were small numbers of  female river jewelwings; I did not see any males.  I also saw (but did not photograph) a few dragonflies (probably slaty skimmers) along the edge of the paper mills’ lawn.

On the way home I stopped by the Tenney’s Farm for what are probably the last of the strawberries for the season. We had them for dessert over vanilla ice cream after dinner. Yum!

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31 May 2012

End of May Odes

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 8:00 PM

I spent a few hours hunting odes down at the beaver swamp at the back of our property this afternoon. The most common species present was the four-spotted skimmer, which I had not seen here before. There were a number of other species present including a few which I did not get photographs of. Interestingly I only saw two damselflies all afternoon. They will be “arriving” soon, I suppose!

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28 May 2012

Lady Slippers

Filed under: Monadnock Region,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers — Tags: , — Frank @ 8:00 PM

The lady slippers are in full bloom around here.

On Saturday, Joan’s cousin Suzy called and said that they had one blooming right at the side of their driveway. I, of course, headed down there the first chance I got and took a bunch of photographs, playing with the lighting, angles, background, etc.

This morning, I was out back by our shed and noticed a lady slipper right between the shed and the outhouse (now used as a tool shed). Upon further exploration we discovered close to a dozen under the pines and hemlocks right behind the house. Of course,  I spent another interval photographing them.

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Warning… photo-geek talk below coming next!

Both these photos were taken in full “Strobist-mode”. Both the camera and the flash were set to full manual mode. I set the aperture to get a nice out of focus background and the shutter speed to get the exposure I wanted on the background (under exposing it dramatically). Finally, I set the flash power to get the desired exposure on the flower.

In the first photo the flash was bare and about 18 inches away. I used a collapsible diffuser to place the flower in essentially open shade.

In the second photo the flash was about a foot way and was equipped with a “softbox”. Again, I used the diffuser to place the flower in “open shade”.

I thought that I had left the softbox at home for the first photo and had to make a choice between using the diffuser in front of the flash or to provide shade.  It turns out that the diffuser was in my backpack all of the time… I just hadn’t looked hard enough… heavy sigh!

First Ode Photos of the Year

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 8:00 PM

Although there have been odes present in the yard for at least a couple of weeks, I had yet to find the time to “go hunting”.

Finally, yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, I spent a bit of time prowling the edges of the yard with my dragonfly rig. There were a number of species present with chalk-fronted corporals (Libellula julia) being the most common.

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17 May 2012

Last Weekend

Filed under: Landscapes,Monadnock Region,wildflowers — Frank @ 7:46 AM

Last Friday evening looked promising for a nice sunset so I headed over to “Sky Farm” (a Forest Society parcel) in Deering. The walk to the top is short (about a quarter mile) and the views (mainly to the north) are spectacular. The sunset itself turned out to be a dud, only some low clouds on the horizon. However, the sun provided for some warm low angle light for a brief time; this allowed me to make the first image.

On Sunday, I headed for the Contoocook Falls in Hillsborough… at least it said “falls” on the map… it is more of a set of small rapids. The light was too harsh (even with broken clouds) and there were not many good angles for shooting the river.  However, I did discover some very small (fingernail-sized) wildflowers (Anemone quinquefolia, according to Joan) that made for interesting subjects. As I was setting up, one of the flowers had a visitor.

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